This time a year ago, we discovered that colleges were, after all, in the public sector and had been since 1993. The office for national statistics (ONS) made this declaration, citing an international statistical standard introduced eight years earlier, in 2014.
ONS is a slow and methodical organisation. It looked again at laws passed by Parliament in the 1990s and, because the statistical rules had changed, the ONS national accounts committee changed its mind. No longer private sector, it said. Colleges have been public sector all along.
Unlike ONS, the department for education moved quickly. Within minutes of the ONS announcement, DfE ministers presented a statement to parliament and the education and skills funding agency (ESFA)’s chief executive sent a letter to college principals. Following treasury orders, they introduced a series of new controls on college decisions.
With immediate effect, colleges were ordered to ask for approval on issues like taking out loans, offering financial support to other organisations via guarantees and making voluntary severance payments worth more than three months of salary.
